Brent Batten: Mack stands firm on debt ceiling

Being in the majority is no guarantee you won't sometimes be a minority.

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack is living proof of that today, being one of just nine Republicans to vote against the controversial cut, cap and balance plan to address the nation's fiscal crisis.

When the votes for cut, cap and balance were added up Tuesday evening, it passed 234 to 190. The vote was mainly along party lines, with five Democrats voting in favor of it.

Mack joined a handful of Republican representatives including presidential aspirants Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul in voting against the plan, which would impose about $111 billion in immediate cuts, set future spending limits and require a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution be sent to the states for consideration.

Mack spokesman David James said Southwest Florida's representative isn't against the cuts, the caps or the balanced budget but he voted no because the legislation would have allowed an increase in the nation's debt ceiling.

In spite of the dire warnings that failing to raise the debt limit will result in financial catastrophe, James said Mack does not believe the limit should be increased.

"He has made it clear. Enough is enough," James said.

Mack is still pitching legislative leaders his plan to bring the federal budget into balance by mandating a one percent cut in spending each year for eight years, after which time federal expenditures would be limited to 18 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the value of all the goods and services produced in the country each year.

The 18 percent figure is key to both the Mack plan and the cut, cap and balance plan, which initially would allow the government to spend up to 19.9 percent of GDP each year before reining it in to 18 percent after 2021.

Eighteen percent is not a figure pulled out of thin air.

It's a level of spending in line with what historically has been the money coming in to the government.

Going back to 1970, the GDP has grown from about $1 trillion annually to about $15 trillion today, Over that time, revenue to the government has fluctuated between 17.3 percent of GDP and 20.6 percent of GDP. For example, In 1970, revenue was 19 percent of GDP and spending was 19.3 percent of GDP, resulting in a small, by today's standards, budget deficit for the year.

In the year's since, while revenue has stayed close to the 18 percent figure, spending has ballooned.

The gap between revenue and spending grew to as much as 6 percent in 1982, when Ronald Reagan was president as revenue amounted to 17.5 percent of GDP and spending reached 23.5 percent.

Ensuing years saw the gap between revenue and spending fluctuate around 3 or 4 percent deficits. In the latter years of Bill Clinton's presidency, revenue actually exceeded spending by a point or two.

But in 2009, the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP exploded. Revenue fell to 14.9 percent of GDP and spending hit 25 percent, a 10 percent gap unlike any seen since World War II. The 2010 gap was nearly 9 percent on the deficit side. 2011 is expected to bring a deficit amounting to 11 percent of GDP. In 2012, the figure is "optimistically" projected to be a 7 percent deficit.

Current White House projections show federal spending going no lower than 22.3 percent of GDP through the year 2016. In other words, the federal government will consume nearly one fourth of everything everyone does or makes for the next five years.

Getting spending back to 18 percent of GDP would balance the budget and, assuming the GDP grows, eventually allow overall government spending to inch up accordingly.

Mack's plan has won the endorsement of Freedom Works and the National Taxpayers Union, two influential conservative lobbying groups.

Pundits give the cut, cap and balance plan little chance of being the ultimate answer to the debt ceiling discussion since it is opposed by Democrats controlling the Senate and by President Barack Obama.

The Mack plan, known as House Resolution 1848, has a sponsor in the Senate in Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming but no hearings has been scheduled in either chamber.

James says regardless of what happens with the debt ceiling, Mack will continue to promote his plan because federal spending needs to be brought in line with anticipated income. Surely he can't be in the minority on that point.